This invention relates to a magnetic head utilizing the Hall effect of a thin film of amorphous alloy.
In recent years active studies have been made of a magnetic head utilizing a thin film of amorphous alloy formed of transition metal and rare earth metal. Such a magnetic head is already set forth in Japanese patent disclosure No. 52-131,711. This disclosed magnetic head comprises an amorphous magnetic film having an axis of easy magnetization directed perpendicularly to a film plane, and attains a desired effect by utilizing the memory property of said film and its anomalous Hall effect.
With the disclosed magnetic head, a Hall voltage is produced, as set forth in FIGS. 3 and 4 of the patent disclosure, by causing the plane of the amorphous magnetic film to contact that of a magnetic tape 5 or to face it. Unless, therefore, the width of the film 2 as measured from the running direction of the magnetic tape 5 is narrower than the width of a unit magnetized region stored in the magnetic tape 5, then it is impossible to correctly draw out data (Hall voltage) corresponding to the unit magnetized region. In other words, the disclosed magnetic head substantially fails to reproduce data having a shorter wavelength than the width of the film 2, and is not adapted for reproduction of data recorded with high density by a vertical magnetic recording system. (For the vertical magnetic recording system, refer to, for example, the Japanese patent disclosure No. 52-134,706).
The inventor of this patent application has conducted studies on a magnetic head suitable for the reproduction of data recorded with high density by the vertical magnetic recording system. As a result, the inventor has discovered that where a Hall element having an axis of easy magnetization extending in the planar direction of the film is applied instead of utilizing vertical magnetic anisotropy, then it is possible to provide a magnetic head adapted for reproduction of data recorded with high density (hereinafter referred to as "high density data").